XCode > Preferences > Indentation > Tabs

Hi

A useful trick in Xcode is to re-indent the whole file; this is particularly useful when the file comes from someone else, or has been developed on a different editor/IDE, or when you've changed the preference settings.

I discovered through trial and error that a fireproof way to do this is as follows:

Make sure the file is in the Xcode editor, and click on any line to put the cursor there.
Cmd-A to highlight the whole file.
Cmd-[ enough times to remove any previous indentation.
From the menu: Edit > Format > Re-indent

This will re-indent the file using the current preferences and frequently sorts out a lot of these tab/space issues.

Bob

frangipane, I'm not sure what you're doing, but it worked perfectly for me. You didn't confirm that you downloaded & installed the latest version of Xcode (in one of your posts you said that you were using v.3.2.4, so that might be your issue.)

I actually appreciate Bob Lang's input on using the Re-Indent command. It works really nice. Here again what you need to do, step by step:

1. First open up Xcode and click the Xcode item in the menu. Then go to Preferences -> Indentation and uncheck "Tab key inserts tab, not spaces". Click OK to confirm. (This part works more like Microsoft menu, and not Apple's, so clicking OK or Apply might be somewhat confusing here.)

2. Open your source file in Xcode (.m, .h, .c, .cpp. etc. file)

3. Click somewhere in the source and select all with ⌘+A

4. Now you need to "mess-up" your current indenting for Xcode to fix it on the next step. (You might want to submit it as a bug at a link posted by Bob above, because Xcode won't do much if it finds the current indenting to be correct.) OK, to do this, simply hit ⌘+[ one or a couple times to make the code all bunched up to the left.

5. In the menu go to Edit -> Format -> Re-Indent.

At this point the Xcode will re-indent the selection (i.e. the whole file) and you can have your 4 (or as many you set up) spaces instead of tabs. Make sure to save and continue on with the next source file.

frangipane, I just tried the "Tag key inserts tab, not spaces" option in the preferences for Xcode and it worked exactly as it's supposed to. You must keep in mind that it will not change tabs that are already in your source file. To change those you'll need to reformat the code. The easiest way to do it in Xcode is to select a code block and then hit ⌘ + [[ and then ⌘ + ]] for each tab space.

Check 'Tab key inserts tab, not spaces'. Most browsers allow a reasonable space when they 'print' a tab.

Did you create this file from scratch? Or did you inherit it from someone else who used tabs? Xcode will not replace any tabs that were already there. That setting only applies to new code.

Also, how are you displaying the code in a web browser? Are you using a monospaced font?

frangipane wrote:
- Uncheck Tab key inserts tab, not spaces
- Press tab
- Press left key.

Is the final position of the cursor back to its initial position, or to its right (by 3 spaces)?

3 spaces to right.

frangipane wrote:
In my case it's back to the initial position. I expect 3 spaces to the right!

This is very trivial. But I'm assuming that you're OK'ing the Preferences window after you make the changes...

frangipane wrote:
Is it possible to set up Preferences, such that typing anything inside a newly created file will meet this criterion (no tabs, only spaces).

That is what the spaces vs. tabs setting is for. I am very particular about my formatting. I wouldn't have noticed spurious tabs in my code.